Last week's Sabbath Moment story--It is better to light a Candle--was drawn from the week's current news cycle.

The story (a massacre at a synagogue in Jerusalem) unsettled me because it had all the elements / seeds of that which I do my best to avoid--vulnerability. It is a story about loss and cruelty and hatred and intolerance and sorrow; and the hopefulness that someday the pieces will fit back together. It's not easy to fathom, this reminder that life can be so fragile. There are times when we feel at the mercy of...  

So. I took some time off, and my son and I checked out computers. Seems harmless enough. In the Apple store--waiting my turn--I couldn't help but notice that each table sports a sign. So I wondered where I would fit: Genius. Kids. Personal training. Or, Luddites who need a hug. Bingo.  

This past week many Sabbath Moment readers emailed / wrote. And I'm grateful. I believe it is because we all feel the vulnerability in our world, and we need something, or maybe just one another, to cling to. Because the story is so blatant, one reader wondered, "Why highlight this atrocity when such atrocities occur daily, with no attention or notice, let alone spotlight. Don't you see!!"

Yes I do see. And I could have chosen any number of stories. Here's my confession; when I read stories of cruelty and inhumanity (regardless of the perpetrator), my psyche wishes to shut down, or I want to morph into the Hulk and dispense eye-for-an-eye justice.

So I know why this story has stayed in my heart all week. Because I want to absorb "ahavat chinam"--love for no good reason. Because I still have difficulty believing that our hearts are vessels of love.

Today, I need the story of Kassie Temple.

"Remember only this one thing," said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory."  --from Crow and Weasel by Barry Lopez

During the Great Depression, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Moved by her story, in the mid-1970's, Parker Palmer (Center for Courage and Renewal) began volunteering occasionally on New York City's Lower East Side. At Mary House, the Workers lived with the poorest of the poor, providing food, shelter, medical attention, and other forms of direct aid, as well as advocating and agitating for economic justice.

Kassie Temple was one of the workers at Mary House. A brilliant writer with a Ph.D., she could have been a professor. Instead, Kassie chose to share life with the poor, helping to keep hungry and homeless people from starving, dying of exposure to the elements, or being further brutalized--as well as engaging in political advocacy on their behalf.

Palmer writes, "I volunteered for a couple of days several times a year. Of course, every time I came back, a new wave of human misery had washed over the place. So one day I asked Kassie the question that had been vexing me: How do you keep doing this demanding work, day in and day out, when you know you'll wake up tomorrow to problems that are as bad or worse than the ones you're dealing with today?"

Kassie told me, "What you need to understand is this. Just because something's impossible doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."

I realized that my feelings of vulnerability--life's uncertainty or cruelty or cheerlessness--is somehow tethered to this notion of scarcity and impossibility. So when faced with any "impossibility" or the need to love for no good reason... in my mind or heart, I resort to, "It can't be done."

(It's important to remember that as long as I need to conquer or win, I will always come up short.)

Kassie's story reminds me that throughout history, people, very ordinary people have taken exception to hopelessness. Very ordinary people have taken on "the impossible" time and time again.  

Regardless of the outcome.

Speaking of Luddites... we can learn from the Amish. After the 2006 Nickel Mines school shooting--ten Amish children killed in their own schoolhouse--the Amish community began their healing process by forgiving the shooter, and reaching out to the shooter's family (he took his own life, leaving behind his wife and children). The Amish attitude of forgiveness (shared by their entire community) was met with a mixture of awe, amazement and respect. And, in some quarters, skepticism. One op-ed writer wondered if the Amish were using forgiveness to get publicity. When asked about it, one Amish Grandmother put it this way, "You mean some people actually thought we got together to plan forgiveness?"

This grandmother made me smile real big; the kind of smile that stays with you for a spell. You see, their behavior / response was not a plan, or strategy, or tactic, or ploy, or scheme. Their choice, their forgiveness, their "ahavat chinam" flowed from who they were, from the inside out.

Yes. This capacity--for love, compassion, kindness, truth, forgiveness, justice, restoration--is within. Every one of us. 

And here's the deal: One of these acts of gentle courage has your name on it. Maybe even today.

That message--"Just because something's impossible doesn't mean you shouldn't do it"--resonates as I wander the garden and property, on this the first day of Advent. I woke up this morning to a perfect Christmas card photo--two to three inches of snow--a blanket on the landscape. Shafts of sunlight slant through tall firs, making shadows and shapes on the lawn snow. On my patio I listen to the stillness, broken by the occasional chatter of birds who have congregated at the feeder to bicker and fuss (not unlike some churches I've attended).

As I wander, I'm amazed to see leaves persisting, splashes of color on this otherwise white and gray landscape. One tree stands alone, way back in the woods, striking with golden yellow leaves still intact. The snow can't quite cover the lipstick red leaves on the Winged Burningbush Euonymus. And on each of the remaining bronze leaves on our Japanese maple, perch snow dollops like whipped cream. This persevering beauty is the leaves way of proclaiming, "We're still here. We haven't given up yet. We still do have today."

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things  

with great love. Mother Teresa

As the season shifts, so let our paradigm shift: My life is not about success or even effectiveness. My life is about faithfulness. One gentle act of courage at a time.

I head back to the house and the fire in the fireplace that waits. I hear wind chimes, the breeze in the trees, and the crunch of my shoes in the snow.